Elon Musk has blown the whistle on an alleged plot by unelected European Union (EU) bureaucrats to blackmail his social media platform X into censoring users.
Musk claims eurocrat members of the EU’s European Commission tried to pressure his company into agreeing to an “illegal secret deal” to avoid huge fines.
According to Musk, the EU offered him a deal to avoid the fines by secretly censoring content on X at the behest of Brussels.
Musk says he rejected the deal before exposing it in a post on X.
However, he also accused other social platforms of taking such deals.
The push to censor social media users, on a global scale, is being led by European Commissioner Thierry Breton.
Breton is an unelected bureaucrat who wields significant, unchecked power.
Led by Breton, the European Union moved to make its new Digital Services Act (DSA) felt on Friday.
Breton is accusing Musk-owned X of breaching these EU rules and is threatening huge fines until the company complies with the demands.
Musk hit back immediately, saying the DSA itself was the source of “misinformation.”
In a post on X, Musk revealed that the European Union had tried to broker an “illegal secret deal” with him to usher in the EU-directed censorship.
Musk wrote in his claim:
“The European Commission offered [X] an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.”
“The other platforms accepted that deal.”
However, Musk asserted that he rejected the EU deal.
Musk added: “We look forward to a very public battle in court so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”
Britain’s Brexit leader Nigel Farage responded to Musk’s allegation on Friday evening.
Farage has long railed against closed-door European Union deal-making and obscure practices in his successful campaign to get Britain out of the bloc and away from the influence of Brussels.
“Elon Musk reveals the truth about the EU. What a guy,” Farage declared.
According to Reuters, the European Union has accused X of being insufficiently transparent.
The EU claims that the rules require social media platforms to tackle “illegal content” and “risks to public security.”
The European Union has also said it is dissatisfied with X’s blue check system, which Musk changed when he bought the company.
The blue check system was originally a badge of honor for elitist celebrities and was intended to prove the account had been verified.
However, the system’s blue check marks ended up giving accounts an unwarranted level of authority and were increasingly being abused by spammers.
Musk changed the system to allow anyone to apply for a blue check by paying a small fee, which in turn, verified their account and cut down on spam.
Breton and his eurocrat allies are now demanding the system be reverted, arguing that it does not “correspond to industry practice.”
According to the report, if Musk and X refuse to bow to the EU’s demands, the bloc could attempt to fine the company six percent of its global turnover.
The EU will also “require significant changes” to the way the American company is run.
In theory, X could be banned from operating in Europe at all.
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